Izuna feels the nearness of her cycle as she always does. With a desire that creeps into every quiet moment and pulls her focus. It's not enough to ruin her concentration, but it weakens it. Only training keeps her easy and takes the edge off the itch.

Ordinarily, they spar in the mornings, but the sky is clear and she's spent the day needling him. It makes it easy to goad him into an evening sparring session. He seems as eager for it as she is, and as she's felt him when they spar, when he flinches away from the rough shape of his own desires, she suspects his reasons are not so different from her own.

They agree to taijutsu only, and there is satisfaction in every blow she lands, every time she gets him on his back, but it's not quite the kind she's after. When he pushes her back into the dirt with enough force to wind her, she feels where he's swollen and doesn't allow him the space to flinch from it as he normally does, instead trapping him close with her thighs, pushing up as he pants and shudders, fingers digging into the dirt.

"Izuna." A warning she has no intention of heeding. Some part of her craves this. Wants badly to see how far she can push him—allow him to push himself—and still have him pull back for her. How far he'll be controlled.

"Is not the goal submission?" He hesitates and she sees the way he wants, leans up to press a hand into his chest, wrap the other over his nape and tug at his hair as she speaks low into his ear. "You will stop if I ask. Come, now. You've won, take your prize. Don't be gentle." He tries to kiss her before she pulls back and she bites his lip, sharp enough to draw blood.

"Vicious," he breathes, licking at the blood that wells to the surface while she falls back and allows her legs to fall open for him, stretching her arms above her head before relaxing them to toy with her own hair.

"Do I need to beg?" The offer is not entirely a comfortable one, but she knows he won't take it.

A dizzying thrill shoots up her spine as he settles between her thighs. It's different, like this. Terrifying to have him heavy between her legs, close enough to share breath, to feel his chest expand against hers.

"Never, my love." It becomes difficult to breathe.

•

"Wait—" He stops them when he's already out, trying to breathe through the urge to push, take, with her hand already on him, guiding him where he needs to be. "The cotton—"

"It's already inside." His wife is devious.

No feeling compares to being wanted inside of her. He understands, now, that in the earliest parts of their marriage he experienced only the most perfunctory pleasures of Izuna's body. Like this, to feel her pull at him, try to drive him deeper inside of herself as though she wishes he could fill her entirely—it is beyond what he could have imagined, at the time.

Still, something sits poorly in his chest. Some anxious nausea that will not shake, grown stronger each day since she soothed him in his brother's office.

He craves the feeling of her skin under his own, but she always hides from him. Her obi has been lost, and when he slips his hand below her hem to caress her waist, she stops it before it can rise and expose her any further, moves it to her throat, instead.

"Come on," she urges, he presses bruises into her skin as frustration swells behind his ribs. He wants this. Wants her like this, but it's not a point of pride. It feels like a backwards step.

"You still hate me?"

"Yes," half-moaned, fully sincere. He's asked the wrong question.

"Is that all you feel for me?"

"Stop speaking."

•

It's when he moves once more to kiss her that it becomes too much. For a moment, she wants it so bad she feels as though she might be sick, but the burn under her skin gives way to fear and she turns at the last moment. His mouth finds her neck, instead, and she feels, clearly, the aggrieved noise that leaves him.

She tightens her legs around him until the muscles burn, turns her knuckles white over his back, tries to show that she wants him. Wants to give what she denies him, but the air between them has shifted and she knows he's no longer with her in the way he was a moment ago.

"Tobirama—" Too little too late, he's already pulling back from her. She sees he's softening and feels the empty ache where he's left her.

"What is this?" She feels the rough edge of his voice behind her ribs. Sits up and finds the rest of her clothes to pull them back on while he fixes his own, suddenly feeling too exposed in the open air.

"What do you think?"

"Speak plainly with me, Izuna. You only want me when one of us uses the other."

"That's not true." It's not the only way I want you, it's the only way I can allow myself to have you. She doesn't know whether it would do more harm than good, said out loud.

"It is."

"I felt you, Tobirama." It's not everything, not all he points out, but she doesn't understand why he shies from an urge she accepts in him. "I always do, when we spar. To take some pleasure in hurting me when I allow it isn't the—" She hears her own poor phrasing even before he cuts her off.

"I don't want to hurt you."

"Can you not even admit it to yourself?" For a moment they only look at each other. She hates what she sees behind his eyes. "There's no shame in it. Do you not remember what I said? 'You will stop if I ask,' I said it because I know it to be true. It's not the same as it was. We aren't the same as we were."

"It's an impulse I don't take pleasure in."

"It's not in your control, there is no other way."

"You accept no other way."

"You mistake my meaning. Tobirama, some part of us will always bear hate in each other's name. Don't you see that?"

"Why should it be that way? Have we not already—"

"Be serious, husband. I am your wife, I am the woman who cared for you when you were unwell, who wants you and—admires you. I am also someone you fought for years, I helped to take your brothers from you, and you've hated me for it as I have you. We are more than any one of those things, but they do not go away."

Tobirama doesn't speak. His face doesn't hold anger but hurt. It's worse, somehow, but she feels the same. It's what drives her to speak so frankly as she does. She gentles her voice when she continues, crawls closer to him to catch his eyes where he's turned them away, so clearly troubled by her words.

"We have to learn. We have to find a way to allow for the hate we carry to exist alongside everything else we feel. See that one won't ruin the other."

•

There's still more to be said, but her words have wounded him enough to keep him quiet for a moment. It's the truth behind them that hurts in a way he struggles with.

"If you feel you can never forgive me—"

"It's not as simple as that." He resists the urge to tear at his hair and instead reaches out to take her wrists as she brings her hands to soothe over the tendons of his neck and jaw, gone tight with how badly he wishes to close this distance that lingers between them.

"Please, Izuna." For once, he does not mind the desperation he feels in his own voice. He craves openness, with her, and cannot find the energy to hold back from it any longer, it does no good. "You speak of hate as if it's only half of what's between us, but you allow so little else. Is there not more? Have I fooled myself?"

"You haven't. Of course, there's more, I only—"

"It's difficult to believe. Look how you behave. You never bare yourself, you avoid closeness, I cannot even kiss you. I thought—when you brought me close I thought it might be different, but you only wanted to be hurt. To be safe. You flinch if I so much as speak my love for you."

"Tobirama, please—" She tries to pull back, but he keeps hold of her wrists and she doesn't use her strength to leave.

"Is the difficulty in hearing feelings you don't return? I do not need—"

"Hear me, please. This is not easy." Impossible yearning pushes him to pull her closer when she removes herself from his touch entirely, but he knows she has to be left the space to speak if she's to be willing to do so at all. "I do love you, Tobirama. That is where the difficulty lies." Their eyes hold as she speaks, he's never seen the hurt in them he does, now. He reaches for her without thinking and she shifts away. "Please, don't."

Her words are ones he's craved to hear since he saw their sentiment in his own heart, but now she's spoken them, the ache behind his ribs has only grown sharper. He feels no better than he did moments ago.

"I've expected too much of you without explanation." Izuna shifts, sits back with her knees in front of her. Further distance. "We see more to each other now than we ever allowed before, but—if I give you the rest of me, and accept you the same, what's left?"

"I would never ask you to leave yourself behind for—"

"Don't you see that I would have to? Who I was—who I thought I was, I could never have accepted you. Not given a thousand years, not for all the love in the world. Now, though, I consider it. I want it, and I can't help feeling as though I've betrayed myself."

Should it be enough, he wonders, that she even wants to? What can he content himself with?

"Is there nothing I can do?" She shakes her head, rests it over her arms so he cannot see her face.

"I do not want to be the woman who loves her rapist and I do not want to be without you." Will he forever be haunted by his own mistakes? Fear smarts under his skin—the thought that one night's actions might follow them so far, that she might never look at him without seeing the cruelty he'd inflicted on her. It's a testament to the change between them, he thinks, that he even sees it for what it is. Still, it doesn't seem to be enough.

"Is that all I am to you?"

"No, but it is there. I am afraid, Tobirama, of you and of myself."

"I would give anything to take it back." She looks back to him before she replies. The words are spoken with a sadness that makes it seem as though they must hurt her as much to speak as they do him to hear.

"But you cannot."

Silence makes the space between them feel larger than it is.

"I did not see you as you were, at the time." It's not enough, he doesn't speak with the aim that it will be. Only wants to offer her the same understanding she's tried to give him. "You weren't wrong in your assessments of me. I didn't see the Uchiha as deserving of the same humanity I saw in myself."

"I know."

"I cannot fix what is broken between us, but I want to make clear that I know how I behaved and I feel far from that, now."

"Are you really so different? You assume everything should fall into place now your feelings have changed, regardless of—"

"I do not." Irritation is familiar enough between them to be easily subdued, now. "I only want to understand your reasoning, Izuna, I have no wish for you to force yourself. I swear it. I may not be so changed in manner, but in thinking. We'd spent our lives fighting—"

"I know, I don't begrudge you that. Every wound struck before our wedding was a fair one, as far as anything could ever be fair in war, but—you were not wrong, either. I have been alone here. Less so, now, but to accept that you are the one keeping me from being so when it's you who could do the worst—"

"I would not—"

"But you could, and you have. I don't believe that you would do so again, but—sometimes you touch me and I can't help remembering. It makes me disgusted with myself, for wanting you and for doubting you both. I do not know which is weaker."

There is a smallness to her that he's never seen before. The one hinted at in the week after their wedding, but never fully realized as it is now.

"I am trying to find some way to make peace with every version of you." It is the worst kind of argument—if it could be called that. The kind where he can find nothing for either of them to fix.

When they lie down to sleep she pulls near and they stay close, finding comfort in the affection allowed between them. It's enough to accept it for the step it is, if not quite so far forward as they both with it to be.

"I will learn to trust you, husband." Her words are quiet, they leave his skin burning where her lips brush. "It would hurt too much to be without you, so I must."

•

The new year approaches and Izuna cannot help but find the atmosphere it brings to the village pleasing. As children, moments of levity were few and far between, but the new year had always carried with it new hope. It would be gone by morning, but for the night, they were allowed to indulge in their dreams. Something that always came easier to her brothers, but even she couldn't resist, for one night.

It's difficult not to allow herself some indulgence in the feeling. Not only in that the village has lasted longer and stayed stronger than she'd ever have expected, but in her own marriage. Things are not easy between them, but they aren't so difficult as she'd feared they would remain.

She no longer assumes the worst of Tobirama's reactions, though, not can she bring herself to expect the best. Regardless, he has been patient. If she thinks too closely about the love he wears plain on his face, now he's accepted it, she struggles to keep her breath, but otherwise, things have been well. They've been closer, she's allowed more, if only to prove to herself that she will not lose sight of her own being in doing so.

Of course, hope had always failed them as children, and she's more a fool than ever for thinking it wouldn't do the same now.

"I heard she squealed like a stuck pig." A familiar voice, if not a notable one. She catches it drifting out from the open room of a nearby inn.

"I heard the bitch moaned. Uchiha whore couldn't help herself." With the second voice, she places them. Senju men. Tobirama's men. It is not difficult to imagine who they're speaking of. This isn't the first time she's heard them speak vulgarities about her, though it is more brazen than most. What concerns her is when—

"All that mess, crying rape and trying to take her own life like it was worth anything to begin with and she couldn't even pretend not to want it." The men laugh. There are others joining them.

"At least he makes good use of her, makes sure she knows her place. Someone said it was a rough scene, blood everywhere." A new voice.

"The more the better. Think he'd let us have a turn if we ask nicely?"

"Well, she's clearly not done her duty, her stomach is still flat as a board. She really ought to make use of herself somehow."

"I'll bet he sticks it in her ass. Dirty cunt isn't fit to be a mother but she'll still feel good around his cock, wherever he puts it."

"Is it even worth it? Honestly, just take her eyes and be done with it." Until this moment, she's considered turning her back. Their words are ugly, but inevitable. Senju men with bitter feelings and too much drink. This sentiment, though, she cannot allow.

"Now there's an idea. Then she'd really only be good for one thing."

"As she should be."

She's heard enough.

•

Izuna's chakra flares so sharply he feels it from across the village.

When he arrives, there's a clear trail of wreckage where she'd dragged the three men who kneel at her feet from the inn. There are signs of a struggle, brief and violent, but none appear mortally wounded, all trapped in a genjutsu, staring open-mouthed into the distance.

"Izuna," it comes out as more harshly than he means it to, "release them, and explain." She turns on him and he knows he's misspoken. Why, he thinks, I should have asked why. The men remain as and where they are.

His wife's eyes spin red and he does not flinch, though the urge is there when he sees the fury behind them.

"They will explain for themselves." She pulls their words out through their own mouths and Tobirama feels his knuckles creak with how tight he curls his fists, clenched to keep from any one of the things he wishes to do, none of which would help the situation. As he listens to what they say, he can't bring himself to pull her hand from the throat of the man who speaks, his face purpling under her grip.

Copper colours his tongue as he hears one of his men—higher up, someone he's trusted with his own life—speak about his violation of Izuna with more pleasure than even he himself had felt during the act.

"They will be punished." She laughs in his face and lets the man in her grip fall back to the ground. He knows her too well not to see the pain that fuels her anger. Not to see her regret.

"Are these not your own words? Your own brags?"

"You truly believe I would say such things? Even now?" Silently, he begs her to remember every feeling expressed between them, to understand him well enough to know he's meant every word spoken.

"I would not have had you asked me an hour ago, I do not want to now, but I suppose I've been a fool, haven't I? What else am I meant to think, Tobirama?" She laughs without humour. In her voice, there is a tone that searches for some explanation. Something she can believe in if not him. "Tell me, husband. They are your men, you guide them. Where did they hear such colourful stories if not from you, their honourable leader?"

"I do not know, Izuna, but I swear—" When he steps towards her she shoves him back hard.

"Keep your distance." It isn't easy, never has been, to think objectively where Izuna is concerned, but he tries, now. Tries to see what she must see, hear what she must hear.

"I swear, I will find the source—"

"And then what will you do?"

"Whatever you would like. Whatever makes you feel—" Safe, in control, valued. He has time to offer none of it.

"I want them dead." He recoils at her words, cannot help himself. It's the one thing he knows he can't offer. He wants to—enough so that it startles him, makes him feel as though he's lost sight of himself in some way—he would do it, but Hashirama would never allow something so brutal.

"Izuna—"

"I will not return home as long as they live."

She leaves him with his men at his feet and the peace they'd found in ruins.

•

Illness follows close in the step of her fury and she cannot shake it. Isn't certain she wants to.

Madara seethes when she tells him. He still isn't aware of the truth behind their words but it hardly matters. He isn't so foolish as to think she wastes herself on being upset over rumours not so different from those that have plagued her for years. Ones they both could have guessed would follow her marriage, even had it been under better circumstances.

No, he hears the real danger in their words.

"They will not lay hands on you." He swears. "You will not live there while they still breathe."

"I told him as much." Madara nods. Every word he speaks carries the same fire that lights his eyes. There's hurt there, too, but she is too mired in her own to be of any use to his.

"There is no peace between us if they allow such a vicious sentiment to take root." For once, she does not try to temper him. His words aren't unreasonable. She knows as well as he does that this is the only ground they can never cede in the name of peace. If the Senju would allow their eyes to be coveted without consequence, there's none to be had.

"I am sorry, sister. I am sorry. You saw the truth about him, all this time, and I forced you to marry him, to—"

"Madara, please." It's too difficult, she can't think of her husband, right now. Can think of little else.

Her brother is quiet too long to believe he sees any less than the truth.

"You love him."

Izuna cannot keep the sick back, then.

When she is still unwell by morning, her brother sends for the same physician who gave her the mercury. The old woman wastes no time on pleasantries or comforts when she arrives. Running her hands over her temples, her chest, her stomach, her back, leaving the gentle burn of her chakra behind as she goes.

Izuna knows before she speaks what she's going to say.

"You're with child."

Madara stills by her side. It must be early, she thinks. A miracle Tobirama hasn't felt the spring of new chakra inside of her. Madara presses the woman to be sure, Izuna already knows there is no question. She feels the truth of it in the pit of her stomach.

When the physician has gone, Izuna is left with her head between her knees, Madara's hand gripping her shoulder.

"If you need—there are teas—"

"Madara, please. I cannot, right now."

She does not want the tea. She wants blood.

"We will meet with the Senju tomorrow." He sounds as though he cannot decide himself whether it's meant as a comfort or a warning to brace against.

A/N: The thought of Tobirama having ED hasn't allowed me a moment of peace since I had it, sorry. Also, I can't believe this is over 50k. I literally intended it to be around 10k. What happened? Who am I?